


Life as We Know It (is Strange)

by SonGoharotto



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game), XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Bittersweet Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, F/F, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pulp Science Fiction, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26434852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonGoharotto/pseuds/SonGoharotto
Summary: Base scuttlebutt has it that they'd been sent to extract some valuable asset or another, right out from under the X-Rays' nonexistent noses.  A game-changer, people are saying.  Chloe is up for some liberal save-scumming.  Take back what once went FUBAR.  But the frail young woman with messy, mousy brown hair, around which Alpha Squad crowds, doesn't look all that impressive from here.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Comments: 17
Kudos: 20





	1. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story and chapter titles inspired by _Life as We Know It_ (EP) by Wild Colonials.

The first time Chloe sees Max in seven (eight?) years, she doesn't even recognize her once-upon-a-time best friend.

Cpl. Price is helping to sort inventory from The Council's latest care package, a monthly allotment of supplies which only seems to dwindle as this intractable war to prevent the subjugation of humankind by extraterrestrial invaders drags on. It's an unglamorous assignment. Even though Chloe regularly outperforms any three 'Squaddies' in the field, her reputation as a problem child preceded her all the way from YPG to XCOM, and she quickly made Central's Shit List™. Chloe can tell by the angle the old man's mustache twitches what bitch shift she'll be pulling any given day.

At least she's in good company, for a change. Rodney “Thunder” Sears has a reputation as a hardass, but he doesn't give Chloe static about reporting for duty red-eyed and hungover. Everybody knows why.

Real liquor is hard to come by these days, but some enterprising individual in Engineering has been making moonshine to keep the Rec Room bar stocked. Tastes more like engine grease than booze, Chloe thinks, but how else is she going to kill brain cells while staring holes into the Memorial Wall? To his credit, Thunder doesn't offer his condolences, or try to make small talk. Minimum necessary communication, the odd good-natured ribbing, to keep things light and productive.

Chloe lifts with her legs, not with her back, but her arms still ache from hauling ammo boxes and sleeping on them wrong the night before. Her arms, that is, not ammo boxes, although her bunk is about as comfortable as. She's ready to tap out for an e-cig break (and maybe a nip of the hair of the dog that bit her), when klaxons in the hangar announce the imminent return of Skyranger. Chloe lights up (electronically speaking) and watches the clunky VTOL maneuver its way into their rough-hewn mountain base.

She tries suppressing her jealousy as Cpt. North leads Alpha Squad down the ramp, returning from another triumphant mission, no doubt. (That should be her out there, dammit, chewing bubblegum and kicking alien ass!) Not that it ever seems to do much good. 'Winning in the streets, losing on the balance sheets' is why more than one Council of Nations member has dropped XCOM like a bad habit in recent months.

Base scuttlebutt has it that they'd been sent to extract some valuable asset or another, right out from under the X-Rays' nonexistent noses. A game-changer, people are saying. Chloe is up for some liberal save-scumming. Take back what once went FUBAR. But the frail young woman with messy, mousy brown hair, around which Alpha Squad crowds, doesn't look all that impressive from here.

This unknown arrival is handed off to a medical response team led by Dr. Jefferson. If that creepy bastard ever shows emotion at all, aside from a hunger for eldritch knowledge so cold and clinical that it gives Chloe goosebumps from across the room, now would be the time: he's practically bouncing on the balls of his wingtipped feet. An impeccably-dressed war crime waiting to happen. Chloe doesn't know if the newcomer is going to be the next groupie in Jefferson's nerd cult of personality, or his next experiment, and she doesn't envy her either way. They call him 'The Butcher' behind his back for a reason, to which XCOM's former captives can(not) attest.

Something about her is vaguely familiar, though. Chloe takes another drag of aerosolized addiction and watches the assemblage leave for parts unknown. Probably a lab which smells of disinfectant and blood not-quite-erased-by-disinfectant. Cute butt, though. Thunder sidles up alongside and nudges her with one beefy, tattooed arm. Eyes narrowed, smirk suggestive. Chloe tells the Sarge to eat shit, and she can get away with it since he's one of the few people on staff with a sense of humor, before they get back to work.

Cpl. Price and the elusive cryptid thereafter designated “Mystic” won't cross paths again for another month or so, almost long enough for the grunt to forget she was ever there.

They're all expendable, so it's not like she's looking to make friends. This mountain is inhabited by ghosts-to-be. Chloe suspects that's why her application for transfer to XCOM was so readily accepted; because there's no one left to mourn her. No one to compensate for her (inevitable) tragic fall in the line of duty. Chloe's formal intelligence, general aptitude, and willingness to field test bleeding edge tech which might blow up in her face probably didn't hurt her chances. Or maybe Yuma brass was finally done with her shit-stirring and took the easy excuse to be rid of her, just like . . . everybody else.

A particularly sour day means Chloe has a good head of steam built up when she spots Second Lieutenant Prescott entering a side door, well outside his normal stomping grounds of Mission Control and the Officer's Quarters. That makes him easy pickings. She's been waiting for an opportunity like this and impulsively shoulders her way through the closing door in pursuit.

The El-Tee whirls to face Chloe, looking like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. A cursory perimeter check turns up no discernible reason why he should be embarrassed to be caught alone in a unisex restroom.

Surprise gives way to paranoia, Nathan Prescott's natural state of mind. “What do you want?”

Chloe has a couple inches on the young officer and uses every bit of her height and swagger to make him uncomfortable with sheer proximity. She opens with, “Let's talk bidness.”

“I got nothing for you.”

“Wrong. You got hella cash. And maybe I'm here to extract weregild. You know what that is? It's the old Viking word for 'man price'. Blood money. Your family knows all about that, right? It's what you owe for—getting—somebody—killed.” She punctuates the last three words with jabs to Nathan's chest.

He bristles at the mention of his familial connections. Old money, deep state. It's no secret that the Prescotts bought Nathan's commission. If they thought there was any prestige to be had among the ranks of XCOM, Chloe suspects there was overestimation of their chances at saving the world. Nathan brushes her off and tries to create distance, but bumps into a sink. Some naughty scamp had scratched 'Work Hard' and 'Mustard Big' into the mirror over his shoulder, and Chloe knows who, which only stokes the furnace of her rage.

“Fuck you, that wasn't my fault!”

“The fuck it wasn't!” Chloe shouts back, losing her cool. “That whole op felt like a hang job from jump street and you're, what, trying to tell me comms 'went out' right as we walked into a goddamn kill box? I watched a Seeker tear Rachel apart! We couldn't even collect what was left before bugging out.”

“And I already paid for my mistakes,” Nathan whines, but Chloe isn't having any of that.

“Oh, boohoo, poor little rich kid. Did you get a demerit? A slap on the wrist? Maybe daddy cut the ration of blow from your weekly allowance?”

That sparks something in his petulant glower. “How dare you— You can't talk to me that way. I outrank you, bitch.” Nathan shifts from foot to foot, eyes darting around like he's looking for somebody to back him up.

“You're a glorified receptionist, Prickscott. Maybe I should tell Central that one of his keyboard jockeys is a keyboard junk—”

Situational awareness be damned, Chloe let herself get carried away with righteous fury, because she doesn't see Nathan reaching for the weapon tucked behind his back until it's already halfway drawn.

Cpl. Price has stripped, cleaned, reassembled, and tested every firearm in the XCOM arsenal, even the new beam weapons which she hasn't had the chance to wield in live-fire combat yet, and this isn't any of them, but that doesn't mean its shape is unfamiliar. Quite the contrary, the last time she saw one at this range, a Sectoid had it pointed at her head.

The plasma pistol shakes in Nathan's grip. He's looking especially unhinged. In the back of her mind, Chloe wonders if she wasn't far off the mark with her crack about the young officer's coke habit. Everybody copes with the stress of living in The End Times in different ways, after all.

“Where did you get that?” Chloe asks, sounding far calmer than she feels. Her muscles coil and her breath slows, the same physiological response to facing an enemy combatant which has been ingrained through long hours of intense training and life-or-death struggle.

Nathan sneers, “It pays to have friends. Even if, yeah, even if you gotta pay them to be friends. Not that some, some, trailer trash dyke—” he spits that with real venom “—like you would know. We're reverse-engineering alien tech. Knowledge is power, get it? Power,” he repeats and is starting to ramble, eyes going glassy. “I didn't pull the trigger on your girlfriend. Not me, no. She got too close for her own good. Her own damn fault.”

Chloe measures up the distance, examines Nathan's unbalanced stance, leaning too far back on his heels. Meanwhile, she's not wearing anything resembling armor. Just a black tank top which shows off her shoulders (the way Rachel liked) and standard gray ACU pants. She'll have to strike first and disarm him quickly. Chloe Price hasn't ducked Floaters, wrestled Mutons, and spat in the mandibles of a Chryssalid to be taken out by the likes of Nathan Prescott in some godforsaken water closet.

“Got too close to who?” Chloe presses, trying to keep his brain spinning whatever tangent he's on about. “Close to me, is that it? You wanted a piece of Rachel Amber, like every other man on base with two eyes in his skull, but she was too busy clam diving to give you the time of day?”

“You—don't know—anything,” the young officer growls. “Not a damn thing about me or what's really going on around here.”

“So, what's your play? Gonna make me disappear like you did her? Think you can flush my body down the toilet? This is a closed base. People will notice if I go missing.”

“No. Nobody would ever even miss your punk ass, would they?” he counters, face going slack like he's come to a horrible decision. “Jefferson can always use more raw materials.”

Nathan raises the pistol from a hip-fire to chest height, overextending just enough for Chloe to make her move. Quick as a snake, she claps one hand on the barrel and the other around the man's wrist, at once pivoting to take her torso out of the firing line while twisting the weapon out of Nathan's grip.

One problem, though: it doesn't work. The muscles of his arm feel like bands of steel and don't budge in the slightest, fingers locked tight. Nathan shoves back, pinning Chloe against a wall. The barrel of his weapon digs into her sternum, free hand slapping the tiles by her ear and making her jump. He didn't look this strong. Unnaturally strong, even.

The last time Chloe misjudged somebody to such a catastrophic degree, it was thinking her childhood BFF would actually keep in touch, after her family moved to Seattle. Compounded by the recent loss of her father, the later abandonment of her mother, and the future Overrun of the whole damn West Coast, that pain had lingered for years. If there's any consolation for this latest failure in a long line of failures, it's that the pain will only last seconds, until the magnetically-captured ionized gas melts a hole through her chest.

Nathan pulls the trigger. Chloe prepares to meet her Maker. There is a flash of light, not green as she expects, but purple. The plasma pistol shakes so violently that they both look at it, stupefied. It spontaneously disassembles like an exploded holo-schematic, before clattering to the restroom floor as inert pieces.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Chloe takes the initiative and drives a fist into the pit of Nathan's stomach. He doubles over and bounces off a sink on his way to the floor, vomiting the semi-liquid remains of lunch, or maybe breakfast.

She could stay and make sure to drive the point home, as it were, but the logical part of her mind (which doesn't get enough exercise) is telling her not to leave visible marks on the young officer. Take your own advice, Chloe. He's too well-connected. Get out while you can. Retreating first lets him preserve some shred of dignity. When you've both cooled off and come to the conclusion that no, Nathan, didn't say anything incriminating, he'll likely choose not to retaliate. Head down, stay alive.

It's only after Chloe is two levels up and on her way to the relative security of the Barracks when her sense memory recalls something her waking conciousness neglected to register in the heat of the moment: there was a third party in that restroom. A young woman standing at the back, half-hidden behind a stall. Barely glimpsed yet held in sharp relief. Tousled brown hair, gray-blue eyes like the Bay before a storm, and a dusting of freckles across her nose. One of her hands had been raised, to intervene, or to say goodbye.

Maybe XCOM Headquarters really is haunted by ghosts, because that sure as shit looked like Maxine Fucking Caulfield.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna just pull the trigger on this AU and put it out there. It helps that I have only five chapters, all the major plot beats, and a clear vision of the ending in mind. Writing in the present tense feels more immediate, but is harder to keep straight, so forgive me if it doesn't always flow. Let's hope I can ride this wave of inspiration and actually finish a story for once!


	2. True (With You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe shudders to think what hole the aliens might have been keeping Max in and feels a fresh, familiar wave of hate for the damned invaders rise in her throat like bile.
> 
> Although the corporal has held her ground and not made so much as a peep, “Mystic's” eyes open and turn to Chloe as if she was expected all along. Her voice is soft and reedy.
> 
> “I'm glad you came.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not totally happy with this chapter, didn't cover nearly as much ground as I meant to, but it's already twice as long as chapter one. Pushing it out anyway because I need to get used to just being done with something and moving onto the next.
> 
> Story and chapter titles inspired by _Life as We Know It_ (EP) by Wild Colonials.

The funny thing about a clandestine paramilitary organization such as XCOM is that even knowing about it is classified at the highest possible level. Or rather, that used to be the case, until The Council was forced to announce its existence to the world. In the wake of the Pacific Overrun, that was their only play in hopes of preventing a mass panic. Who knows how long this shadow war was conducted before then, alien attacks being disguised as pedestrian terrorism by a mass media disinformation campaign?

Just being allowed on base requires a degree of security clearance which most world leaders don't have. As such, there really aren't any formal levels of clearance above that and XCOM Headquarters itself has counter-intuitively open people flow. Nobody gets on or off base without intense scrutiny, but on the flip side, there are few real barriers to prevent Chloe Price from digging into the identity of “Mystic.” And any community this isolated and desperate for distraction will gossip like old washer women.

For example, Chloe knows that Central Officer David “Central” Madsen is an Army vet who lost his best friend to an IED during Operation Enduring Freedom, that he's a Baptist whose faith lapsed at the revelation of the existence of extraterrestrial life, that he keeps an unopened bottle of J.P. Trodden Small Batch Bourbon in the bottom left drawer of his private office desk to celebrate winning the war, and that he has a penis even smaller than his mustache. One of those things may have been Chloe's contribution to the rumor mill.

Among the other leadership personnel, Dr. Michelle Grant, a civilian and the Chief Officer of Engineering, holds multiple Ph.Ds and patents, but languished in academia because she loved to teach (the way Grant tells it) and totally not because of racism inherent to the system (according to 'Scottie' in R&D).

As for Mark Jeffershit (Chloe's pet name for the Chief Science Officer), a man whose every pore and fiber from his artfully disheveled coiffure to his hipster chic wardrobe screams junior college professor working on the 'Great American Novel' in his free time, theories as to his point of origin run the gamut of being a fringe astrobiologist, disgraced for appearing in an episode of The History Channel's 'Ancient Aliens', to a former Russian FSB interrogator whom wisely expatriated himself after being caught seducing the Prime Minister's daughter.

Come to think of it, only XCOM's Commander seems to be a genuine blind spot. Chloe's money is on them secretly being a 'WarGames'-style experimental A.I.

To make a long story short, if you're looking for the hottest gossip, you go to Stella Hill, because the person whom processes requisitions knows what weird, kinky shit everybody else is into. Busybody that she is, figuratively and literally, Stella keeps herself wired on a cocktail of stimulants which would make a med student blush. Chloe hasn't touched any of the hard stuff since coming to XCOM, but she knows a guy in the motor pool whom grows hydroponic marijuana as a side hustle. (Nobody knows where Bowers grows it, but also, nobody is looking too hard.) A discreet hookup from her stash nets Chloe a promising lead.

A data analyst named Juliet Something (Patson?) spends her days sorting the wheat from the chaff, determining actionable intelligence versus dead-end reports from hysterical amateur ufologists, and her nights entangled with one Lt. Riggins. In another life, Zachary Riggins would have been a small town varsity football star, but in this one, he's Cpt. North's right-hand man on Alpha Squad. According to Stella, a round of shots with the ladies lead to Juliet bemoaning her boyfriend's (“we're not putting a label on it tho', ya know”) wandering attentions.

Juliet Something's (Olson?) relationship insecurities is an easy thread to pull. Chloe of all people knows what it's like to wonder if a certain significant someone cares about you as much as you care about them. Chloe and Juliet commiserate, teasing out that Zach, while getting treated for a plasma burn, had inadvertently caught an eye-full of Mystic being tended to by a careless “murse.”

Chloe doesn't truck with Alpha Squad, not since Drew North ended up in traction for a month after she failed to clear that crashed UFO properly and they got blindsided by an Outsider, but grunts like Riggins and his brother-from-another-mother Logan Robertson are too shallow to hold a grudge for long.

Chloe finds the fraternity of meatheads in the exercise room and she makes her approach. Pump a little iron, work up a sheen of sweat — enough for Zach and Logan to forget Chloe's well-earned rep as a raging queer — then divide and conquer.

While Logan fetches protein-based refreshment, she offers to spot for Zach on the bench press. He barely gets through one set before his eyes go off reservation.

Cpl. Price may have missed her calling as a traveling trobairitz, because she plays Riggins like a damn fiddle: “Oh my, what big muscles you have! Tee-hee, I though you were into girly-girls who need a strong man's protection? That Mystic is a cutie, huh, don't suppose you know where she's being hidden away?”

By the end of what barely passes for making conversation, Chloe feels the need to hit the showers and scrub the residue of Zach's perverse miasma off her skin. Fortunately, she does learn the name of Mystic's assigned medical technician.

Warren Graham doesn't look old enough to shave, let alone be an M.D., as it turns out. A real Doogie Howser type child prodigy, whom got recruited by XCOM after a Close Encounter of the Sucks Kind during his stint with MSF. Chloe shadows him for the better part of a day to get a feel for his pressure points, and what she comes away with is that he's a painfully awkward turbo nerd of the highest order, if the sci-fi paraphernalia which adorns his cubicle is anything to go by. She's kinda impressed that he can still be an enthusiast for that stuff, considering they're living out a real-life alien invasion scenario.

It reminds Chloe of own youth and frequent sleepovers with Max, watching old movies they were probably too young for. 'Screamers' left her best friend shivering in fright for hours and Chloe (she admits to herself with some shame) had gotten a little thrill out of cuddling the younger girl until finally dozing off, such that she would pick out the scariest movies she could find, until her dad caught wind of it and imposed (in retrospect) perfectly reasonable viewing restrictions. Those memories are bittersweet for a variety of reasons now.

Chloe shakes off the goopy nostalgia and decides to forego giving Warren the sass, instead biding time until he leads her to Mystic. Rather than the medical ward, she follows him deep into Jeffershit's Research Labs, dodging a gaggle of The Butcher's fan club with more luck than Dr. Graham does. He comes away from the encounter with an actual 'Kick Me' sign on the back of his white lab coat. It's like being back in high school, Chloe grouses internally.

Warren finishes his rounds and beats a hasty retreat before catching more static, allowing Chloe to stealthily slip through the automatic door closing in his wake. It shuts with a hiss and click, all sound from outside immediately dampened. She takes in the tableau:

The room itself is like most others in XCOM Headquarters, sterile armored hull reminiscent of a submarine, some lined with arcane equipment giving off a subliminal symphony of hums and beeps. In the middle is a beast of a hospital bed, which looks far cozier than the Barracks bunks, and makes its already petite occupant look all the smaller.

Max Caulfield hasn't grown in stature much since Chloe last saw her, a span of time now roughly equivalent to the amount they were friends in the first place. Even in repose, Max appears older and more haggard than her twenty-something years would suggest. Brown hair that was a wild mop upon her arrival has been trimmed to a ~~cute~~ manageable bob, and her freckles stand out against pale skin which hasn't seen the Sun, seemingly, in far longer than the weeks she has been on-base. Max lies atop the crisp linens, wearing a standard (read: unflattering) XCOM jumpsuit, strategically unzipped for access to an intravenous line and a spider's web of electronic leads. She looks unwell.

Chloe shudders to think what hole the aliens might have been keeping Max in and feels a fresh, familiar wave of hate for the damned invaders rise in her throat like bile.

Although the corporal has held her ground and not made so much as a peep, “Mystic's” eyes open and turn to Chloe as if she was expected all along. Her voice is soft and reedy.

“I'm glad you came.”

Chloe's feet carry her to Max's bedside on autopilot. The pissed off teenage side of her, still flying the flag of her trauma like a battle standard, wants to berate her 'former' best friend for not staying in touch. The world-weary adult side of her knows how unreasonable that is and squashes the impulse, too guarded to relax the stranglehold on her emotions and risk feeling anger, hope, anything.

Instead, Chloe splits the difference.

“That's what she said.”

Without missing a beat, Max's mirth snorts out and she sounds a decade younger. Chloe is so delighted that she can't help but to laugh along, even though the joke wasn't anywhere close to funny enough to warrant this big a reaction. She doubles over and grasps a handful of the bed sheets to steady herself. Thin fingers wrap fondly around her wrist, the same gentle touch which never restrained Chloe, never stopped her from doing something foolish, always reassured her that Max had her back. That touch undoes her.

All of Chloe's regrets and relief boil over until they're dribbling down her face. She lists like a sinking ship and catches her hip on the bed. At some point, Max rises to sitting as well and wraps her free arm around Chloe's shoulders. The taller woman's fumbling hand gets tangled in the leads and some monitoring machine changes pitch in protest at this disruption.

“M-Ma-ax,” Chloe eventually blubbers, “tell me this isn't what it, urgh, tell me you're not—”

“It's not, don't worry, I'm okay,” Max sighs into Chloe's neck, a sound like honesty and music. She never was a very good liar. “Just, all the tests can take a lot out of me, you know? And some days are harder than others. But I'm recuperating, I promise.”

When Chloe gets a handle on herself again, she feels lighter than she has in years. “Okay, Maximus, be honest: did you recognize me in that bathroom?” she jokes, because masking her vulnerability behind humor is Chloe's defense mechanism.

Max chuckles, swiping dried tear tracks from alongside her nose. “Not from the way you looked,” she concedes.

To be fair, Chloe has put on a lot a muscle and a few tattoos. Plus, the mass of strawberry blond hair from her childhood has long since been replaced by a military high-and-tight, now growing out on top for kind of a soft butch vibe. Rachel liked running her hands through Chloe's hair. Chloe idly wonders if Max would too.

Max's cheeks pink and her eyes flit away when she adds, “But I guess being an empath is part of my Gift, because I sort of 'felt' it was you.”

Chloe's lips form a perfect ring as she goes, “Oohh?” and waggles her eyebrows saucily. “So you're feelin' me, are you, Caulfield?” She pokes at Max's burning cheeks, whom cringes and swats at her. Mentally, something clicks into place for Chloe. “What's this about a gift? Did you have something to do with what went down back there? Why was Prescott following you anyway?”  
  
“Um, who?” Max evades. “The-the guy? I never caught his name. I just didn't like how he was following me around. You came in before he said anything to me.”

“C'mon, out with it!” Chloe wheedles. “Don't hold back on me now, sista. You're the one everybody is calling 'Mystic', aren't you? Supposed to be some kind of living weapon?”

Max makes a face, though whether prompted by the call sign or the implication, she doesn't let on. “The 'Gift' is what Dr. Jefferson calls it,” she says at last. Chloe doesn't like the hooded eyes or shadow of a smile she sees when Max mentions that name. “I have, um, psionic powers, or whatever? You know, like 'they' do.”

And Chloe does know, better than most. As if the aliens' superior technology isn't bad enough, the 'little gray men' XCOM has dubbed Sectoids possess potent telepathic and telekinetic capabilities which are a serious force multiplier. There's evidence it is in use as part of their communications network too. Though there has never been a verified case of a human displaying such power, until now.

“How?” Chloe demands. Something hard and fierce on her face makes Max flinch. Maybe it's her ingrained misoxeny, poking through her skin like a puffer fish. Maybe she's still kinda ~~jealous~~ pissed that her friend (her BEST FRIEND who is ALIVE) might have been taken in by Jeffershit's cult leader charms, like the rest of the nerds around here. Chloe immediately softens her tone: “Start from the beginning, tell me everything.”

Max settles back, though she doesn't let go of Chloe's hand. Her other waves towards an overbed table. There is no display of purple radiance this time, but Chloe feels the thrum of energy in her temples as the table wheels closer, so Max can reach a pitcher to pour herself a cup of water. She takes a sip, then avoids the other woman's eyes guiltily.

“Sorry, not showing off. I'm supposed to practice little things in my free time.” When Chloe doesn't respond to this, Max huffs and starts in on her sordid tale:

“I was in Seattle Center with my parents when the, uh, bio-weapon things dropped on the city. One landed right in front of us. People were gathering around, and we thought it was a crashed satellite, or whatever. It, uh . . . it got Mom right away. Even as it was dragging her b-ba—ck-k,” Max's voice breaks, but she soldiers through it, “sh-she was screaming at us to run. Everybody who could was running, just total chaos.”

Max's voice tapers off with a strangled sound. Chloe offers, “Those drop when the X-Rays start a round of abductions,” so the brunette has an excuse to catch her breath. “We don't know how they work or where the people are taken. However they're masking their ship, or ships, we can't even tell how many.”

“Figures, yeah. Whatever kind of radiation that thing put out, it made Dad sick too. There's a history of cancer on his side of the family, did you know? And over the next week, Dad got all of them. Was wasting away before my eyes. Emergency services were collapsing in the panic, so it was impossible to see a doctor. We were getting ready to leave the city, because the aliens — I mean, we didn't know they were aliens yet, but something — something was stalking Seattle, taking people. Sometimes in broad daylight. We had to get out, but I . . . ended up leaving by myself. I couldn't even bury my parents, Chloe.”

“I'm so sorry,” Chloe murmurs, brushing her thumb over Max's tightening knuckles. “Ryan and Vanessa were great parents, and my folks loved them too, you know that. Dad would have been the first on the road to come get you guys, if he'd been, well, whatever.” She clears her throat and gulps down a mouthful of Max's water.

“I have to ask, um, what about Joyce?”

“Still in Arcadia Bay for the Overrun,” Chloe replies, stiff and clipped. “We hadn't spoken in years by then, but I reckon she died along with that shit hole. It was rough for us, since you left town, Max. Not that I'm blaming you . . . not anymore, anyway. I was a pissy teen punk, got in with a bad crowd, drugs and stuff. Dropped out of school. Even died my hair blue, like a goddamn cliché.”

“I bet you looked cute with blue hair,” Max supposes, smiling sadly.

“I was fucking hot,” Chloe corrects and regains a bit of her composure. “But I was so hard on Joyce. I needed my mom, but all I did was push her away. She was a widow with a fuck up for a daughter and the diner, the bills, were grinding her down daily. She was lonely and grieving too and we could never get on the same page. When I was sixteen, she'd finally had enough and sent me to one of those military academies for troubled kids.”

Max blanches, stricken, and tries to cover her reaction by pouring herself more water. Maybe Chloe's tone was too acerbic.

“Did you know those actually exist, like in 'Bill & Ted'? Joke's on her, though, that's where I learned to shoot and blow shit up! Her plan to straighten me out totally backfired. Also 'cause I realized I was hella gay. If you, uh, couldn't tell,” Chloe amends sheepishly.

“I was picking up some signals,” Max responds.

Chloe tries not to read into the way Max holds her gaze and squeezes her hand. Her fingers are a little cold, so Chloe sandwiches them between her own. They're quiet for a bit, not uncomfortably so — Chloe has never been uncomfortable around Max for a single moment that they've known each other. Isolated from the rest of the base like this, it's like all the world's troubles and years worth of heartache fall away.

The spell breaks when Max pipes up: “I do owe you an apology, Chlo. I should have called you sooner. Every day, really. I abandoned you,” and Max raises her voice when Chloe grimaces at this, shaking her head, “I did and don't you let me off the hook! I was scared of saying the wrong thing, so I put it off, and the longer I put it off, the more scared I got. Believe me, I've had plenty of time running from, from crazy aliens, hiding in abandoned warehouses and stuff, time to think about all the things I could have done better. Whatever powers I have, I can't turn back time and undo my mistakes, but I'm going to make it all up to you, I swear!”

The intensity behind those gray-blue eyes makes Chloe turn away for a moment, ashamed at herself for ever doubting Max Caulfield. “You already are. You're here, with me, in what may be the last safe place on Earth. If you want my forgiveness, Max, you have it! You have—” but Chloe chokes herself off before she can say more, say too much. She's surprised at herself for how strongly and swiftly this old teenage crush roars back.

“Chloe...”

“Alpha Squad's mission was to extract you from alien custody,” she interrupts, steering the conversation into less emotionally treacherous waters. “How'd you end up there, anyway?”

Max regards their clasped hands a moment before answering, “I met up with friends from school outside the city limits. By then, I was having intrusive thoughts, waking nightmares, hearing voices I couldn't understand. Dr. Jefferson isn't sure if I survived the initial attack because of my psionic powers, or if the attack itself is what gave them to me. But I was so out of it, Fernando and Kristen literally carried me some days. Either way, the aliens must have been hunting me specifically. I was, uh, I was the only one they took alive. What came after that, no offense, I don't want to go over it again. Not after being debriefed by Mr., um, X.O. Madsen.” Then Max mumbles, “His questioning was very thorough.”

“He's 'thoroughly' a fascist,” Chloe grunts. “I would have reported Madsen's paranoid ass for breach of privacy, conduct unbecoming of an officer, and a dozen other things, if we were still in the Army. The end of the world makes for strange bedfellows, I guess.”

“Do you really think this is it? The end of the world?”

Max's voice is so small, so frail, that Chloe mentally kicks herself for not keeping a lid on her fatalism. She can't really walk it back, so she doubles down. “A slow death is kinda the worst, huh? Makes me wish they'd drop a bomb on Earth and turn it to fucking glass. Let us go out with a show!”

“Oh sure, while we have the best view in the house,” Max agrees, a wry quirk to her lips. “At least we have each other again. Seeing you after all these years feels like—”

“Destiny?” Chloe's lopsided grin brings some of the light back into Max's eyes, even though the rest of her is starting to sag with fatigue. “Yeah, I'm still tripping on that too. But never fear, Maximilian, I'm not going anywhere without you. Go ahead and crash if you need to, I'll be right here when you wake up.”

Chloe looks around and spots a chair, one of the those gawd-awful ergonomic models which is shaped more like a torture rack, on the other side of the room. She stretches out and swipes at it, attempting to hook it with one foot. Max chuckles, because Chloe refuses to relinquish her grip on the smaller woman's hand, causing their arms to jerk around in all the flailing.

“You can let go of me for ten seconds, you know! I'm not going to float away.”

“O' ye of little faith,” Chloe chides. “I'll have you know that I am a strong, capable, independent woman, and I can make it—on—my—own! HA!” She finally succeeds and drags the chair alongside Max's bed, its metal post feet screeching and stuttering across the floor. Chloe settles into it, folding up her long legs, and pretends she couldn't be more comfortable. “See?”

“You're ridiculous!”

“You know you love it.”

Max doesn't say it out loud, but her eyes sparkle in a way that means, “I do.”

Nobody checks in on Mystic for the rest of the day. The hour grows late and their idle chatter gives way to silent sorority. Chloe one-hundred-percent intends to stay awake until she's certain Max is comfortable, content, and doesn't need anything else. And just like the sleepovers of their youth, Chloe is the first to drift off.

She doesn't dream of Max. She doesn't dream of Rachel, either. She dreams of roasting marshmallows in front of a world on fire, while a great black crow watches her from the barren branches of a dead tree, and for the first time in a long while, Chloe isn't afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering why XCOM's personnel trend on the younger side, and low-ranked for being this deep into the timeline, I'm writing under the premise that Chloe was among a wave of fresh recruits after a lot of the elite veteran operators you'd expect XCOM to be stacked with died on a series of missions which the Commander botched early on. (Like how playing the tutorial forces you to make several egregious tactical errors that even a genre novice should be able to foresee and avoid.)


	3. Vicious Circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The following weeks are a whirlwind of activity for Chloe, proving the veracity of her boast to Central. While Gamma Squad is out of rotation, she volunteers for every mission that will take her; her performance in the field quickly silences the doubters. And there's plenty for her to do these days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! This one took twice as long as the last to write, and about doubles the word count by itself. If it reads like it was written piecemeal over two months, well, it was. Sorry for that. Turns out I had way more to say than I thought!
> 
> Tags have been updated, the chief change being that characters will now only be included if they are both named AND have actual lines. Don't want to give the wrong impression!
> 
> Story and chapter titles inspired by _Life as We Know It_ (EP) by Wild Colonials.

Is it weird that Chloe is watching Max sleep? It's not out of the ordinary.

Early to bed, early to rise hasn't made Chloe Elizabeth Price healthy, wealthy, or particularly wise, but well prior her conditioning to be up at the ass crack of dawn for mandatory PT, she'd spent hours of adolescent sleepovers counting Max's freckles. It was the novelty, at first, because Chloe had never seen someone have so damn many. When her noisy brain refused to let her sleep, she'd amused herself by connecting those dots like constellations.

Max's chest rises and falls, a steady rhythm. Maybe it's the subdued lighting of the room set to sleep mode, but her face looks less sallow, more peaceful. Maybe Chloe is projecting.

Is it weird that Chloe wishes that Rachel were here? Granted, the prospect of having her childhood crush and adulthood bunk buddy in the same room would have given teenage Chloe anxiety-fueled hives. But that aside, Rachel had a way of cutting through Chloe's bullshit artifice and intrusive thoughts alike, a service which she desperately needs.

How does one “play it cool” when somebody your life used to revolve around suddenly comes back into the picture? WWRAD? (For starters, probably not miss her morning duty station and risk incurring the wrath of the angry, armed mustache. Again.)

Is it weird that, even though the walls are soundproofed, and before the lights automatically come up to daytime settings, Chloe knows (in her bones) that Mark Jefferson is about to enter the room? No, that's not weird. In this line of work, you don't live very long without learning to trust your gut when it screams that a threat is near.

Chloe extracts her hand from Max's sleep-slackened grip and adopts a more slumped posture, feigning a doze herself just as Jefferson comes in. If he is surprised by Chloe's presence, he doesn't show it, or acknowledge her at all, instead making a casual circuit of the room and taking note of the readings on various diagnostic machines.

She keeps up the act, stretching and saying through an exaggerated yawn, “What's up, Doc?”

Okay, so that wasn't Chloe's A-material. Jefferson ignores her. She's definitely in his field of vision, but the glare of the room lights off his hipster spectacles completely obscures his eyes. Her spine stiffens, caught between the fight-or-flight response. It's irrational that this creep bothers Chloe so much, when she has faced down things which were literally hungry for her blood.

Should she say something else? No, now the silence has dragged on too long and that would make it even more awkward.

Mercifully, Max rouses and breaks the tension. “Wowser, Chlo, you didn't have to stay the whole night—oh! Dr. Jefferson, hi—I mean, good morning!” She quickly wipes the crust from her eyes and swings her legs around to a sitting position, balking a bit at the leads still running into her jumpsuit. “What, um, what time is it? Are we getting started already?”

“5AM, on the dot,” Jefferson replies, sounding far too enthusiastic for the ungoldy hour. “It was Getty whom said the secret to success is to 'rise early, work hard, and strike oil'.”

“So in this scenario,” Chloe chimes in, “does that make you the kidnapper, or the guy who was such a notorious skinflint that he negotiated his own grandson's ransom?”

Jefferson's expression of mild amusement doesn't falter, but when his black eyes (“Like a doll's eyes,” Captain Quint growls in the back of Chloe's mind) do swing her way at last, Chloe has to suppress a shiver.

“Before we get started, Maxine, perhaps you'd like to introduce me to your charming visitor?”

“Right, yes! This is my . . . friend, Chloe. We grew up in the same town, actually. Funny how we both ended up at XCOM, huh?”

“Corporal Price,” Chloe clarifies, smarmy as can be. She notices how Max doesn't correct Jeffershit about her preferred mode of address. It nettles. Chloe is nettled.

“That would be . . . Arcadia Bay, Oregon, as I recall?” Jefferson's gaze and tone sharpen. He taps something into his tablet, continuing, “Would you happen to be on the strike team?”

“Benched, at the moment. So I've got plenty of free time. I'm here in an official capacity as Max's cheerleader. She tells me you're quite interested in her *ahem* powers,” Chloe goads.  
  


“Indeed, Maxine has quite the Gift. Thanks to her, we're making significant progress on a line of research which would have otherwise been closed to us, given our current . . . resource limitations. And to that end, we have a lot of tests to run today, so I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to excuse us. The strike team must surely be missing you, I expect.”

Chloe wants to argue, but playing tug-of-war with her best friend as the rope would be a pretty shitty thing to do, even for Chloe. So instead, she rocks onto her feet, then smooth as can be, cups Max's chin with one hand and gives her a peck on the forehead, just to plant her flag and make clear her intention to be a nuisance.

“Knock 'em dead, Maximum Overdrive. I'll check on you again tonight.”

“Oh dog,” the brunette mutters, face glowing red.

Whatever else is discussed between Max and Jefferson, Chloe doesn't hear it, as the door hisses closed at her retreat.

In the research labs proper, technicians of various scientific disciplines mill about in the shift transition. There is no real down time at XCOM Headquarters. Chloe almost collides with a trio Jeffershit's more fawning acolytes, all young women jockeying to be the very next to capture his attention. The tallest, a blond with a pixie cut, sneers at the sight of Chloe.

“Look what the Chrysalid dragged in,” she scoffs. The civilian asset badge hanging from her lanyard reads 'V. Chase' and 'Microbology'. She's pretty in the way that her regal nose, high cheekbones, and delicate lips are perfectly suited to that world-class sneer. “Price, don't tell me you've infected Mark's precious little 'Mystic' with your lesbian cooties?”

Chloe hates this bitch already, but she's not in the mood for more verbal sparring. She neither slows nor quickens her pace beyond a casual stroll, making this salvo of snark a drive-by: “I do declare,” using a touch of her mother's Southern twang, “if it isn't the venereal Miss Chase herself! I figured you'd thank me for narrowing the field of competition?”

The thin line of the blond's lips further tighten, reminding Chloe of a Muppet so much that she almost expects to hear Miss Piggy's disgruntled snort. One of the other women flips bleached tresses over her shoulder and stares at her PDA with the lantern-eyed expression of somebody badly pretending not to be listening.

The other, sporting a raven black bob, obliviously corrects Chloe: “I think you mean 'venerable'?”

“I know what I said,” the soldier shoots back. “Besides, we're all professionals here, so you should use the clinical terminology: it's a sapph infection. Catch ya later, V!”

On her way out, Chloe flashes a peace sign, then brackets her mouth and waggles her tongue suggestively. She barks with laughter at the trio's scandalized reactions.

Her improved mood doesn't last long, because no sooner than she steps out of the science wing, a digitized voice intones Cpl. Price's name over the base loudspeakers, bidding her report to Central in mission control at once. When Madsen wants to chew her out over some matter or other, he usually does it someplace without an audience, so this may indicate an escalation. Prompted by a formal complaint from Lt. Prescott?

Chloe steels herself for the worst. She'll eat crow if she has to, but there's no way she's getting booted out of XCOM now that Max is here. Fuck that!

She doesn't bother freshening up first and steps into mission control, pit-stained compression shirt and all. Quickly scanning the bank of comm stations, she doesn't see Nathan at his post, so thank Heaven for small favors. As for the Central Officer himself, Madsen's stoic scrutiny of the Geoscope resembles a mechanic who won't admit he doesn't know what's wrong with a car.

“Price,” he growls at her approach. Not turning around, he automatically answers her lazy, sarcastic salute with a crisp one of his own. “What do you see when you look at this?”

Chloe gives a once over to the holographic projection of Earth, noting that much of its usual cool blues have given way to yellow, orange, and red to depict just how badly fucked those particular regions are.

“Looks like the projector array in Sector 8A needs to be fixed. Everything's gone dark. Sir.”

“Insubordinate, as usual. And for your information, the projectors are fine, it's the United Kingdom which is no longer there. They pulled out of the Council and tried to independently sue for peace, according to the Spokesman. Appeasement,” Madsen spits it like an insult. “Fat lot of good it did them. Reports from the region are not promising.”

Oh.

OH.

“This is the reality of what we're dealing with, Corporal. We're hanging by a thread and can't afford to waste resources. You make trouble on my base, deal in contraband, break down unit cohesion with your antics, and I won't have it anymore. But *sigh* the Commander hasn't given up on you and thought seeing this might motivate you to shape up.”

Once upon a time, Chloe would have had some choice things to say in response to that bit of casual disparagement, but she's since learned how to pick her battles. “With all due respect, sir, motivation isn't my problem. I'm plenty motivated to wring some scrawny Sectoid necks. Just let me off the leash, give me a target.”

Madsen finally looks her in the eye. His jaw works, making his mustache wriggle like a fuzzy caterpillar. Chloe tells herself that Max is counting on her — which may or may not be true, she may or may not be putting her hopes into fucking Jeffershit, Rachel counted on Chloe too and it got her killed, SHUT UP STUPID BRAIN — but that's what it takes to keep herself from busting out laughing in the officer's face.

“That's why,” he grunts in begrudging concession, “against my better judgment, I'm putting you back into the rotation for strike team duty. Gamma Squad is prepping the Skyranger as we speak. Get your gear and report to the hangar. Dismissed.”

No need to tell her twice; Chloe spins on her heels and bolts for the door before the last word even leaves Madsen's lips.

Although she hasn't been issued one of the next generation 'skeleton suits' yet, Chloe's carapace armor has been lovingly maintained and she can slap it on faster than it took Rachel to strip it off her. Her scatter laser, tuned to perfection and nicknamed 'Synergy' (a secret which Chloe will take to her grave), likewise hasn't seen any action outside of the firing range in weeks. She's damn near giddy by the time she reaches the hangar and is hailed by a bewildered Sgt. Sears.

“Where do you think you're going, kid? You know it's my ass if we don't get this inventory squared away, right?”

“Sorry, Thunder, I'd love to do all the counting for you again, but I'm off to meet some interesting and stimulating people of an alien culture—”

“—And kill them,” the big Samoan finishes, taking in sight of her kit and putting it together.

“I'm glad you understand,” Chloe jogs backwards away from him. “It's not you, it's me. But let's stay friends!”

Chloe dodges flight crew on her way up Skyranger's ramp, then collides with a walking pile of duffle bags and ammo boxes. It turns around and Chloe is dismayed to see the gormless mien of one Eliot Hampden. The only other survivor from that fateful ambush, it seems he's assigned to be Gamma Squad's ~~mule~~ heavy.

One night of drunken commiseration turned into a drunken indiscretion, and Eliot has been a bit of a pest ever since. It's going to be a lot harder to avoid him if they're on the same squad again.

“Whoa-ho! Chloe, are you joining up with us misfits now?” Eliot spreads his arms for a welcoming hug, teetering from the unbalanced load, since he hasn't put anything down yet. “Alright, bring it in!”

Rather than humor him, Chloe tosses her own rucksack at his chest. “Yeah yeah, I'm stoked to be back. Be a dear and stow that for me, will ya?” She doesn't wait for a reply and pushes deeper into the VTOL's hold, taking a seat across from Gamma's scout/sniper.

Chloe doesn't know much about Kate “Preacher” Marsh, but what she sees is a morose young woman who looks as rail thin as the rifle propped between her legs. One pale hand clutches the simple gold cross sharing a chain with her dog tags, and she mutters under her breath.

“What up, Preacher? You nervous?”

Kate regards Chloe with sunken, haunted eyes before answering, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

“Then He'd be the first,” Chloe responds dryly.

No one ever accused soldiers of being clever when they hand out nicknames.

Their chat is cut short when Cpt. Ward bounces up the ramp, the love child of a fitness model and Sarah Connor from 'T2'.

Currently the youngest of her rank, Dana “Barbie” Ward was dismissed by the senior grunts and saddled with a condescending nickname, but she owned it and outlived them all (the old fuckers). She became popular with the 'new class' thanks to her reputation for prioritizing her squad's survival even over the mission objective. Chloe wonders if Dana catches any shit for it from Central, because if so, it doesn't show in her exuberant persona.

“Listen up, party people! At oh-four-thirty, we traded one of our Ravens to bring down a UFO over Southern Africa.”

In passing, Dana bumps fists with Chloe, either already informed of her participation or just not easily surprised, then lays a reassuring hand on Kate's shoulder, which earns a rare (if wan) smile in return.

Eliot catches Chloe's eye and does that gross thing guys do, tipping his head in the general direction of Dana's ass and making a suggestive expression, like they're sharing an inside joke. Just because Chloe agrees with his assessment of Dana's assets doesn't mean she's going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that and pointedly turns her full attention to the squad leader, who's kept talking:

“Priority one is recovering the pilot, who is confirmed to have ejected. Other than that, it's the usual mop up duty. So keep your heads screwed on!”

Skyranger roars to life and the troop hold rocks as they depart the mountain base.

Chloe strokes the weapon laid across her lap and whispers to herself: “Showtime, Synergy.”

“What'd you say?” Eliot shouts over the engines.

“I said 'fuck you, Eliot'!”

The following weeks are a whirlwind of activity for Chloe, proving the veracity of her boast to Central. While Gamma Squad is out of rotation, she volunteers for every mission that will take her; her performance in the field quickly silences the doubters. And there's plenty for her to do these days.

Beta Squad recently acquired the first viable sample of a techno-organic medium the eggheads have dubbed 'Meld', which seems to be a vital component in how the invaders create their cyborg monstrosities, so all squads have been ordered to secure further sources of this substance for research whenever possible. The transport containers they've found are always rigged for self-destruction, like the X-Rays are dangling a carrot for the humans to chomp at. Bait? Or a test? Either way, Chloe doesn't trust it.

There's also the matter of EXALT, a shadowy local (which is to say 'terrestrial') faction working at cross-purposes with XCOM. They've been caught trying to harvest alien tech samples of their own. Juliet What's-Her-Name, the analyst, is in hog heaven with this Illuminati-type shit. Senior operatives are conducting undercover operations to find out more about EXALT, as if XCOM didn't already have enough on its plate to deal with, but Chloe has stayed out of that. She's not letting anything distract her from bringing the pain to every bug-eyed xenomorph which dares cross her path.

Chloe climbs the ranks again and a Terror Site mission in New Delhi earns her an officer's commission to boot: While evacuating civilians, she takes down a Berserker single-handed, then manages to drag an unconscious Eliot back aboard Skyranger despite her own injuries.

The Squaddies start calling her “Valkyrie” after that, and Chloe thinks it sounds pretty cool, so she doesn't correct anybody over the fact that a valkyrie is more akin to an angel of death than an angel of mercy. In a way, she feels like it brings her a little closer to Rachel, a little more worthy of following in Lt. (posthumous) Amber's now-legendary footsteps. Chloe is bound and determined to make up for lost time.

It's the same with Max too. After their long estrangement, the two are as thick as thieves again — when their mutual schedules allow, that is. Chloe becomes a fixture in the labs, to the consternation of many, and volunteers to give “Mystic” basic training and weapon drills. Her argument that all XCOM personnel should be trained to defend themselves has less to do with combat readiness and more to do with dedicated private time for her BFF.

Chloe Price keeps telling herself that's all it is. It's not like she gets a tiny thrill out of wrapping her arms around Max to adjust the smaller woman's grip on Synergy.

“I don't think this is a wise use of my powers,” Max grouses, one particular evening. Her tone is closer to amused than annoyed, and the words come out in a warm puff of air against Chloe's cheek.

“You can move shit with your mind, Max. That's fucking insane,” Chloe replies, hoping the boisterous exclamation covers up the quaver in her voice. “We have to play!”

“And what does blowing up a Jenga stack of alien trash accomplish?”

Through methods unbeknownst to Max, Chloe had smuggled an assortment of materials out of research containment and into the firing range. They spent the last hour attempting trick shots off heavy plates of Sectopod armor to hit deactivated Drones hanging from the ceiling, and even the empty husk of a Cyberdisc. To cap the night off, Max used her telekinesis — at Chloe's direction — to stack the smoking remains of their playtime into a pile atop a (still very live) plasma coil recovered from a UFO crash.

“Consider it 'acclimating yourself to the sound and fury of the battlefield'. Besides, real talk: Do you think XCOM spent all this time and resource on you to not weaponize your psionic potential? Sooner or later, Central is going to put you in the field.”

Max pales at the prospect of that. “I want to help, but I don't think I have what it takes to be a soldier. I don't want to hurt people.”

“It's a good thing we're fighting aliens and not people, then,” Chloe lies, casually omitting EXALT from the equation. They seem to have different objectives than pursuing psionic research, so there's no sense worrying Max's pretty little head about it. She slings an arm around the brunette's shoulders and gives her a rough shake. “Besides, your faithful sidekick will be right there with you every step of the way. Now come on, hippie, let's blow some shit up!”

“Aye-aye,” Max relents, chuckling. She settles the butt of Chloe's favorite scatter laser more firmly against her shoulder, aims down sight at the plasma coil, takes a breath to steady herself, and pulls the trigger.

The explosion sounds like an amplifier blowing out, which reminds Chloe of the opening scene from 'Back To The Future'. A crackle of electricity and she instinctively throws her body in front of Max as the shock wave washes over them, smelling of ozone. It's not until the dust clears and the ringing in her ears fade that she realizes how calamitous this little diversion almost was: several jagged shards of alien alloy are held back from their deadly trajectory by Mystic's quick telekinetic reaction.

“Booyah! And nice save, Super Max. See? Do that to a couple X-Rays, get some sweet ink like mine, we'll make a based operator out of you yet.”

“R-Ready for the battlefield, Captain America.” Max drops the shrapnel and gives a shaky thumbs-up. Rivulets of blood trickle down from her nostrils. “I don't feel so super, though.”

Chloe takes back Synergy, looping the strap over her neck, and supports Max with an arm around her slender waist. “Damn, are you okay?”

“Pushed myself a little too much today, just gimme a minute.” If anything, she's breathing harder, but that's probably just from the exertion catching up to her, right?

“Guess we should call it a night anyway.” Chloe looks around at the mess they made and scratches the shaved part of her scalp sheepishly. “What do you say we get some drinks and let maintenance handle the clean up?”

Chloe keeps her arm around Max as they make their way through the base, even though the brunette protests that she's fine now.

The taller woman traded her usual compression shirt for an olive drab tee tonight, to give 'the girls' some time to breathe, and she can't decide if that was a wise or foolish decision, having Max tucked under her arm like this. The synthetic fiber is a thin barrier for her modesty, not that she ever had much to begin with, though for the smaller woman's part, Max is laser-focused on the tattoos adorning Chloe's right arm.

Chloe was only half kidding about getting Max ink. Every time she comes back from a mission with a few more kills under her belt, Chloe goes to Rodney Sears to tally it up. The tattooed Samoan has a talent for the art form. Chloe's ultimate goal is to have so many rows of neat little xeno skulls on display that the invaders shit themselves when they see Lt. Price enter combat.

When they reach the Rec Room and find themselves among fellow XCOM staff again, Max is blushing as red as a tomato and Chloe wonders if the heat in her face is the same. They're ignored by most, though Dana sitting in the corner with Kate raises her own steaming beverage in greeting, and bears a knowing smirk.

Rodney himself is behind the bar tonight, serving drinks — such as it is, given their meager remaining alcohol stock. Chloe suspects there are a lot of big tough grunts drinking fruity girly mixers these days, just for something that doesn't taste like that engine grease moonshine. At her approach, the sergeant raises an eyebrow.

“Haven't seen you around here in a while, kid. Not falling off the wagon, are ya?”

“Watch it, Thunder,” she jokes, “I outrank you now! And no, for your information, we're just a couple gal pals having a casual drink to celebrate our impending victory over the forces of darkness. I assure you, nothing nefarious happening tonight, and if you hear differently, I shall deny it will extreme prejudice.”

Rodney's dubious expression speaks volumes. He passes her a couple tall glasses of dark amber fluid on the rocks. “Iced tea for you, then. Virgin.”

“Ha! No one around here is gonna mistake me for one of those. Or was that a warning?”

The sergeant rolls his eyes and shoos her away with one thick hand.

Chloe rejoins a pensive Max at the memorial wall and ushers her to sit at the nearby table. She kisses the tips of two fingers and taps a particular plaque within reach.

“ 'Sup, Rach. Figured it was passed time I introduced you to Max. Anyway. Max, meet Rachel Amber, or, you know what I mean. She was my angel. Not just mine, she saved a lot of dumb grunts like me who didn't realize what we'd signed up for. 'Angel' was her call sign, actually.”

Chloe hates that even after all this time, the months of drowning her sorrows, her throat still tightens around the words when she talks about Rachel. She takes a long pull of her bitter drink. (Dammit, are they out of sugar too?) Max smiles encouragingly and pats Chloe's free hand, until it stops shaking, but doesn't let go.

“I'm glad she was there for you.”

“Yeah, I didn't exactly make friends at the academy, or Yuma for that matter, so when I got to XCOM, I was more than ready to throw myself into the line of fire and go down swinging. But Rachel had my back. Picked plenty of micro shrapnel out of my ass too, literally! Check it,” she says, fishing inside her shirt for the keepsake.

She produces a vial of tempered glass on a leather cord, its contents resembling ferrous iron filings, except iridescent rather than dull black. “I was gonna make this into flechette rounds, but Syn-er, my fancy scatter gun doesn't fire solid projectiles.”

“Majorly cool,” Max coos. Her gazes flits back to the plaque, perhaps seeing something new in the etched letters or her own obsidian reflection. “Sounds like you and Rachel made quite the dynamic duo.”

“Weelllll, she wasn't you, Super Max. But yeah, we were gonna kick the aliens' asses.” Chloe scoffs. “You'd laugh at how different we were. She was a total overachiever, the daughter of some high-ranking JAG-off, trying to live up to Daddy Dearest's expectations. I—shit, I don't even know if her parents know she's dead. Everything here is classified all to Hell.”

“We'll make her proud, Chloe. Super Max and Dr. Chloenstein are going to save the world.”

Chloe blanks for a moment, the guffaws. “Oh my god, I can't believe you remember that! Those stupid comics, jeez. Hella cringe”

“Not stupid!” Max insists. The intensity in her storm blue eyes makes Chloe feel like a smitten preteen again. “I was scared of a lot of things when we were kids, but you always made me believe we could do anything, as long as we were together.” She interlocks their fingers on the table and Chloe's brain short circuits. “Well, we're together. So what do you say?”

“Haaahh, shit . . . okay. Great motivational speech, Maximus Prime,” Chloe squeaks out. “Maybe we can do it. Together. Let's save the world.”

It's not long after that when Chloe escorts Max back to her private ~~cell~~ room in the research wing. Their goodnight embrace feels more loaded than usual, but Chloe chickens out. She tells herself that she's not going to tempt fate again. Even if Max does feel the same way, maybe she'll be safer if Chloe doesn't give in the way she wants to. What if that distraction is what dulled her edge, made Chloe sloppy when Rachel needed her the most?

So instead, she wishes the brunette sweet dreams and retires to the barracks alone, tending to her frustrations in a discreet manner. The status quo changes significantly the next day, but not in the way Chloe might have expected.

In the wee hours of the morning, Gamma Squad is sent on an asset recovery op. Aliens intercepted a cargo shipment of Council trucks passing by Veliky Novgorod. On the ground, the opposing force they encounter is composed entirely Sectoids. Compared to some of the things they've faced lately, this is a milk run. Gamma Squad mows them down like a scythe through wheat.

Chloe knows something is very wrong when she feels icy psychic tendrils creeping into her mind. WORM. She freezes, lungs burning, words of warning to her squad getting stuck on the way out. FAILURE. Against her will, Chloe raises the laser array of her weapon towards the back of an unsuspecting Preacher. KILL. She fights the twitch in her finger. Bites her tongue and spits blood.

A shouted command. Is that Cpt. Ward? Marsh and Hampden snap to attention. The sniper meets her eyes and looks scared. Resigned. Relieved?

Chloe's vision darkens. She's being pulled into deep, black water.

She's s  
i  
n  
k  
i  
n  
g  
.  
.  
.

A sudden rush of heat from somewhere inside. Chloe feels it pulse through her, expanding from her chest, rushing through her limbs. The echo of a primal scream, not her own, reedy and warm and all-encompassing. Whatever madness that gripped Chloe is gone and she collapses to her knees, dropping Synergy.

She's dimly aware of Kate Marsh drawing her sidearm like an Old West gunslinger, firing over Chloe's head. The inhuman squeal which follows reverberates painfully in their minds. Dana's rifle and Eliot's heavy cannon fill the air with strobing laser fire until their last elusive target, a Sectoid Commander, and the cover it was hiding behind is all reduced to smoldering slag.

Chloe has to be carried aboard Skyranger, her whole nervous system fried by the psychic trauma. The slightest turbulence sends fresh waves of searing pain through her body. Dana is barking over the comms for an emergency medical team to meet their return. Kate hovers over Chloe, maybe praying, maybe pleading. Eliot sits dumbfounded, useless.

The trip is a rough couple hours, but some of Chloe's sense and mobility returns when they finally touch down at headquarters. What greets them is utter chaos. Lights flicker, sparks fly, cargo strewn about. There's scattered weapon fire. Bands of purple energy distort the air, shredding whatever obstacle they come into contact with. Several members of base security are being held painfully aloft like marionettes with tangled strings.

“WHERE'S CHLOE????”

Maxine “Mystic” Caulfield rampages through the hangar, wreathed in raw psionic force. What Chloe first mistakes for ribbons streaming around the brunette, she belated realizes are smears of laser fire, captured and twisted in the air through sheer willpower. Max's glowing eyes fall on Gamma Squad coming down Skyranger's ramp, Chloe carried under the arms by Dana and Eliot.

At once, the power fades and the small woman's desperate feet pound across the hangar. When Max collides at speed with the subject of her concern, it should probably hurt, but instead Chloe feels a gentle warmth and calm suffuse her body. They fall into each other's arms, weeping.

“I was so scared!” Max sobs. Her tiny hands scramble over Chloe's armor for purchase, not finding the contact she needs. “I felt it! I felt you being pulled away from me!”

Chloe nuzzles into Max's neck and murmurs, “Never, Max, never. You saved me! We're totally bonded for life. And I'll always be with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the story tags promised sex and violence, and this turned into one helluva slow burn compared to my past fics, but I'm hoping it'll be worth it. The next chapter will see our protags go on a couple actual missions, because the action itself will be plot relevant, rather than just set dressing. At the very least, I hope you all found some interesting threads to pull in this chapter.
> 
> Feedback is encouraged and appreciated, of course, because a lack of motivation was a big part of why this one took so long (eehhh heh heh). Stay tuned!


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